Kevlar
by HadenXCharm
Summary: Back when we first met, those first few days that we were following each other around... I thought you were stupid. Yeah, I know it sounds bad, but it's the truth.


Hm?... Whuzat'? No, no, I was listening, I just dint' hear ya'... Oh... What, are you serious? _Again?_ Do I really have to tell this story _again?_ C'mon, Yumichika, you _know_ what happened, why do I always have t-... Because I hate telling it... _Because... _Because it makes me sound like a complete asshole!

Ugh, fine, fine, if you'll just go to sleep and stop yackin' in my ear. This is the last time I'm telling it, though... What? I do _not_ say that every time... Yeah, yeah... Okay, are ya' gonna' be quiet, or are ya' gonna' let me talk?... Yeah, just lay your head down and shut up already. Close your eyes... Yeah, that's it.

Back when we first met, those first few days that we were following each other around... I thought you were stupid. Yeah, I know it sounds bad, that's why I hate talking about it. It's the truth, though... Yeah, I know... I thought you were a complete idiot, always playing with flowers and fixing your hair, putting on 'pretty' clothes and prancing around. Seeing you trade away food for an obi even when you could hardly stand from hunger, that just... ugh, I thought you were a fucking retard.

I didn't know about your life, about the horrible people you had to do things with just so you could eat. I didn't know that the only place beauty existed in your life, was inside you, and you knew that. You just wanted to let it out a little to make yourself happy, to give yourself a fragment of light, just a tiny pinprick of light, a reason to stay in this world and not let the darkness swallow you. You knew you were beautiful, and you let that be your shield, your resistance, the only thing that would protect you through all of that. If you hadn't, I dunno' how you woulda' made it through those awful brothels.

I thought you were stupid, foolish, flamboyant... weak, even... and I didn't appreciate you, I admit it, okay? I assumed way too much about you. I had no idea of the suffering you went through. All I could see was a snotty punk who was in over his head. I thought you were dumb to delude yourself that you could be happy in a place like the Rukongai, that you could be upbeat, call yourself beautiful, and have some sort of silent motivation to live on another day. I was lost in my own horrible dark world, filled with blood and blades and nothing else. I hadn't seen anything other than that for so long, and when I saw you, somehow happy while I was caught in a downward spiral, I just couldn't deal with it, I couldn't _stand_ the thought that someone else could see something within themselves that was worth living for. I hated the idea, because I didn't see something like that in myself. I hated it, I hated _you_ out of bitterness, and I lashed out.

I pushed you away and I said mean things without meaning them. I bullied you, shoved you at every opportunity, called you names and degraded anything you liked. All I was doing was hearing the music, not understanding the words. Your beauty was only something I could see, but never grasp. You weren't supposed to exist in a horrible place like that. You weren't real to me. It infuriated me that you could think that somewhere there was hope. I wanted you to be miserable, I wanted your back to break and for your beauty to fade, I wanted you to become bitter and hardened like me, because the song of your beauty was only noise, and I couldn't understand the lyrics. But I do now.

You didn't let all the ugliness of the Rukongai, of the world, drag you down. You got it in your head that you were pretty and you wouldn't let anyone change your mind, not even me. That was your shield, that nothing, not even the most crass and disrespectful of men could break. The people who spit on you and disagreed with your lifestyle, the people who paid for you and left, the people who tried to cheat you, catch you, or hurt you, you didn't care about them. They didn't matter; anything they could do to you just bounced off you because of your bulletproof mantra that you were beautiful.

You had decided that you were going to live, so you did. You'd decided that you were pretty, so you were. You knew you were strong, so you became strong and kicked my ass. You were right, of course. You are still. That spirit of yours, that spirit that I so admired, at the time I had hated, and I can see now that it was jealousy.

I wanted that happiness that you had, I wanted that light and that ambition, that spirit, and I couldn't stand it that you had it and I didn't. I hated it when I would insult you, but you wouldn't even listen, wouldn't even frown or let it hurt your feelings. I hated that nothing could sway you, that nothing could change your mind, and it tore me up inside to think that you'd found something that I could never have. My life was so miserable, but I had been able to survive just knowing that everyone around me was sharing in that hell. To see you so serene and unaffected, I couldn't handle that. I wanted that light you had, that beauty that you had convinced yourself existed in the world, I wanted it, but I was still convinced that it didn't exist, that you were delusional.

But then there was that stroke of luck, and it got through my thick skull, probably a result of you yanking my head outta' my ass. My luck changed and you stayed in my life no matter what I did, no matter how far I strayed, how reckless the fight, how meanly I treated you. You stayed, you survived, you were at peace being with a person like me, even if I was a crazy idiot. Just as you had accepted me, I got it in my head to take that beauty you saw, although it took me a lot longer to figure out than it did for you.

Don't you see... It's you.

I hear your song, see your beauty, and I would never ask you to drown it out ever again. So I don't think it's stupid for you to always be talkin' about flowery junk. Sure, it's annoying sometimes, but I'd never ask you to change that part of yourself. I love you.

So that beauty you have, that spark, that light, don't you see that I have it too now, because I have you. We can live like delusional psychotic idiots, and we might be in hell, I don't know, we might be, but I can't tell, because all I can see is you and your beautiful world.

Aw look, ya' got me all poetic... Don't tell Taichou.

Hey, now, hey, quit laughing at me, I'll punt you right out of bed. Geez, I do somethin' nice and all you do is pick on me... Heh... I know you like that story... C'mon... Close your sleepy eyes and shut up. Night, sweetheart.


End file.
